


Seneca Falls, Selma, and Stonewall

by nevermindirah



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: American History, American Politics, Avengers Family, F/M, M/M, mention of police violence, mention of sex work
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-14
Updated: 2014-11-14
Packaged: 2018-02-25 08:16:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2614748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nevermindirah/pseuds/nevermindirah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam Wilson feels a responsibility deep in his bones to make sure the man underneath the Captain America hoopla is properly educated on American history.  There's a speech he thinks will make just the right start.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Seneca Falls, Selma, and Stonewall

_But we have always understood that when times change, so must we; that fidelity to our founding principles requires new responses to new challenges; that preserving our individual freedoms ultimately requires collective action. For the American people can no more meet the demands of today's world by acting alone than American soldiers could have met the forces of fascism or communism with muskets and militias. No single person can train all the math and science teachers we'll need to equip our children for the future, or build the roads and networks and research labs that will bring new jobs and businesses to our shores. Now, more than ever, we must do these things together, as one nation and one people._

\- President Barack Obama, Second Inaugural Address, January 21, 2013

* * *

"Oh, I love Obama's second inaugural!" said Jane as she lugged in bags of groceries, Darcy following with more. "Sam, you should've told me!"

Sam looked up at her with a grin and then gestured with a finger against his lips for her to be quiet. They dropped their bags and joined the scrum, Darcy squeezing between Steve and Natasha on the couch and Jane sprawling on the floor in front of Sam's wing chair. The dregs of a huge bowl of popcorn on the coffee table suggested they'd been there a while.

"We, the people," continued the freshly re-elected president, "declare today that the most evident of truths –- that all of us are created equal –- is the star that guides us still; just as it guided our forebears through Seneca Falls, and Selma, and Stonewall; just as it guided all those men and women, sung and unsung, who left footprints along this great Mall, to hear a preacher say that we cannot walk alone; to hear a King proclaim that our individual freedom is inextricably bound to the freedom of every soul on Earth."

Darcy always cried at this part. Steve caught her wiping at her eyes and put his arm gently around her shoulders.

Finally, the President wound his address to a close. "Let us, each of us, now embrace with solemn duty and awesome joy what is our lasting birthright. With common effort and common purpose, with passion and dedication, let us answer the call of history and carry into an uncertain future that precious light of freedom."

"And God bless us and God bless America, the end," said Sam, turning to Steve. "What did you think?"

Steve had been grinning for the last several minutes at least. "When's President Obama up for re-election? He's phenomenal!"

"That was his second --" Sam chuckled. "Oh right, term limits happened when you were under. Presidents can only serve two terms now. But I'm glad we're agreed on our favorite president." Sam chose to enjoy Steve's look of disappointment.

Jane asked, "Have you watched other speeches today?"

"Yeah," Steve said, "Martin Luther King's speech, "I Have a Dream", and President -- uh, I keep forgetting his name -- Sam, the one about racism and voting?"

"Johnson."

"Right, President Johnson's speech about black people getting to vote. And President Obama's 2004 Democratic National Convention speech, and the Gettysburg Address, which is old enough that I learned about it in school, thank you, but Sam said it'd be thematic."

"What a great idea. Are you going to do more of these?" Jane asked.

"I should invite you to the next round! I didn't realize you were into politics," Sam said with a wry smile aimed at the floor. "Next up I'm thinking war addresses -- Barack getting Bin Laden, Truman's World War II speeches -- the victory ones and the Hiroshima one -- Bush's mission accomplished bullshit. I'm betting Steve will love Eisenhower's military industrial complex speech -- are you familiar?"

"Of course she is," Darcy said. "And so am I. Genius scientists still have to take humanities requirements, and I was a poli sci major."

Natasha raised an I-told-you-so brow to Sam before saying, "I'll make sure Clint isn't around for any of Bush's speeches. I'm tired of giving up our TV room while they install new drywall."

"Fair enough," Sam said.

Darcy put down the picked-over popcorn bowl and said around a mouthful, "So are we going to talk about what a big deal this speech was?"

"I remember this one," said Natasha. "This isn't my country, I don't pay that much attention to your politics, but I do remember people talking about this for a while afterwards."

"Why's that?" Steve asked.

Darcy gestured to Sam. It was written all over his face how excited he was to talk to Steve about civil rights and Darcy was not about to walk all over that. She would, however, encourage the shit out of it. She gave Steve a big grin.

"This speech was a huge deal because it was so focused on civil rights. It was the most directly progressive Obama had been in a while, and that was cool, but the really big deal was that he connected the civil rights movement to the women's rights and LGBT rights movements. I don't know if you would've caught the reference, the alliteration of big civil rights events when he mentioned Seneca Falls, Selma, and Stonewall."

"Wait, the Seneca Falls Convention, the suffragists meeting?" Darcy and Sam nodded in unison. "A neighbor of mine when I was really little, Miss Ross, she was there," Steve said with a grin. "She was active until the end, though she was too old to travel to DC to picket President Wilson, and she was hopping mad about that. Used to tell me all about the cause when she came over to help my mom take care of me when I was sick. She passed before Bucky and I even met."

"Oh right, New York was like the nexus of suffrage activity back then! You must've known a lot of suffragettes. Is that the term they used back then?"

"Yeah, though my mom usually said suffragist. She was always too busy working, and then taking care of me, to do much but she definitely supported it and she talked about it sometimes when I was older. Bucky's mom leafletted for the vote when she was pregnant with him!"

"And look how I turned out," said Bucky from his blanket cocoon in the far wing chair.

"It sounds like you were raised right! But tell me this, did Bucky's mom or Miss Ross or anyone else you guys knew ever get beat up by cops for the political stuff they were doing?"

Steve shook his head. "Bucky's mom wouldn't go near the more aggressive tactics, respectable middle-class lady and all that. But I remember her telling us about the women who got thrown in jail."

"They made a movie about Alice Paul a few years ago," Darcy said. "It's pretty good, though I'm sure you'd say they got some of the old-timey stuff wrong."

"Yeah I'm sure they did. Add it to my list," Steve said.

"You know," Sam said, "it's funny you say Bucky's mom was too respectable to get bloody in the street. I'm sure your mom was wonderful. But it's an unreliable word, respectable. A lot of respectable black ladies got beat all to hell for the right to vote. That's what Selma was. Mothers, little old ladies, kids, everyone in their Sunday best marching peacefully and the cops beat the shit out of them. The plan was to march from Selma, Alabama to the state capital in Montgomery, to dramatize their fight to be able to vote, and the police blocked them with fire hoses and dogs and billy clubs and tear gas. The news called it Bloody Sunday."

"Was anyone killed?" asked Steve.

"Many people were killed fighting for civil rights. I'd have to look up if anyone was killed on Bloody Sunday, but I know a lot folks were hurt really badly. And you probably heard about lynchings back in your day, a lot of black men were killed that way for decades."

The muscles in Steve's jaw twitched. "Yeah. We heard about lynchings."

Everyone was quiet for a minute. Steve thought back to whispers around low-burning campfires, Gabe and Jim when they thought the others were asleep. Eventually Bucky caught Steve's eye and said, "Gabe."

Sam smiled a little. "Oh you can bet your asses that war hero Gabriel Jones had a few things to say about the civil rights movement. Tripp has family archives I know he's happy to share. Gabe got an op-ed published in the Washington Post right after Selma, calling for a federal voting rights law."

"And this is what that other president's speech was about, right? The law they passed so that black people had to be allowed to vote?" Steve asked.

"Johnson, yeah. The Voting Rights Act was passed after a lot of really intense activism, and the Selma marches got a lot of the credit as they deserved. Of course fifty years later it's not all justice and roses -- the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act two years ago and now a bunch of states require voters to have a photo ID, which used to be illegal because not everybody has one and it costs money to get."

Steve snorted. "Isn't that just like a poll tax?"

"Exactly."

Darcy asked, "Steve, are you registered to vote?"

"Yes ma'am," Steve said with gusto. "What do you think, me and Falcon in our uniforms doing PSAs to get the kids to register? Hey, do you think America Chavez would do it with us?"

"Yes! Obviously!" Darcy squealed. "The internet would go ballistic."

Natasha whipped out her phone. "America would be so into that. I'm texting her right now so you can't pretend in an hour that this conversation never happened."

"Oh I'm serious!" said Steve. "Much as I hate the dog and pony show, I'll do it for a good cause."

"Hey Sam," Natasha said without tearing her eyes from her phone. "What was the third thing in this tour of American history?"

"Right, Stonewall. Now there's another ugly fight. It used to be that cops would go in and raid gay bars at random, arrest drag queens and women wearing men's clothes. In June of 1969 the folks in this one bar in the Village called the Stonewall Inn just got fed up and said no. No one in the bar would cooperate with the raid so the cops tried to arrest everyone, and as you can imagine they weren't polite about it. By the time the cops were trying to load people into police vans, a crowd had gathered and it turned into a street fight."

An awed whisper came from the wing chair in the corner. "They fought back?"

"Yeah they fought back, they rioted for three days. The Pride parade a few weeks ago was the anniversary party. It changed things, made people take them seriously."

Bucky aimed a look of wonder at Steve. "It's like it was a bar full of you. Fighting back," he mutters with a huff. "How many times did we walk past a raid on a bar? They would run, some of the braver queens might offer to give the cops a little pleasure. Nobody fought back like that."

"You two spent time around gay bars before the war?" asked Jane.

"Sure," Bucky said. "Before the war, Steve and I lived together in DUMBO in this tiny little shithole we could barely afford. There was a fairy bar every other block around there, and the Navy yard. Saw all kinds of things. Hell, I sucked guys for cash a few times when we were low on rent or Steve needed medicine."

Bucky looked up from the memory to find every pair of eyes in the room glued to him. Steve's face was flushed and his eyes -- his eyes looked like they were seeing what it means to love for the very first time, terrifying and beautiful.

"You knew that," Bucky said, flat and sure. Then, "You didn't know that?"

"Bucky --" Steve said with a weight that made everyone else look away.

Bucky looked abruptly to Natasha, who said quietly, "Look at the edges of the memory. Do the details match up?"

Steve reached across the couch's armrest towards Bucky, who matched the gesture with his flesh hand, allowed Steve to take his hand and squeeze. They stared at each other.

They were staring at each other like they were the only two people in the room, and Sam quickly realized they should be. "You know I think this has been enough of Amateur Historian Sam Wilson for one night. Same time next week, war speeches."

In their haste to leave, Darcy nearly knocked over the popcorn bowl and Jane had to go back a few paces to retrieve her chocolate-covered espresso beans from the grocery pile. They could come back later to put everything away. Steve and Bucky hadn't moved.

"That was really sweet of you," Darcy said once they were all out in the hallway with the door closed behind them. "You did that on purpose, right?"

Sam smiled slowly. "Yeah. I mean, I didn't know what history we were gonna dig up exactly, but spend ten minutes with the two of them and it's hard to miss there's something they're not talking about. But I'm definitely gonna keep doing amateur lecture hour and I'm gonna do more about civil rights. Steve's got a lot to catch up on and I want to make sure he gets a clear picture of the America he woke up in, bad and good."

"America says hi," Natasha said, looking up from her phone. "Says to make sure you include Lena Horne and Dorothy Height in your history lessons." Sam nodded in appreciation. "Oh, and she's game for the voting PSAs, but only if the three of y'all wear matching booty shorts. You know, for the cause."

Laughter echoed as Jane and Darcy got into the elevator. "We'll definitely be back for next week!" called Jane.

"You know," said Sam, "if you want to see my legs, all you have to do is ask."

Natasha grinned as she wrapped her arms around Sam's waist, her phone finally tucked back in her pocket. "Sam, will you tell me more about American history please? Sexy history?"

"Sure thing," Sam murmured as he leaned down for a kiss.

Several minutes later they were interrupted by a heavy thud reverberating from the TV room. Natasha would swear to it that she heard Bucky giggle.

**Author's Note:**

> Sam Wilson would need to teach Captain America about the civil rights movement. [This post where Sam braces himself to hear Captain America wax poetic over the good ol' days](http://nevermindirah.tumblr.com/post/88071778573/smiledesu-bedlamsbard-leupagus) got me in the gut. I got to thinking how Sam might go about educating Steve. Then it occurred to me what Bucky's face would look like when he learned about Stonewall.
> 
> I'm choosing to handwave the fact that Steve was out of the ice by the time President Obama made this speech.
> 
> Huge thanks to [historicallyaccuratesteve](http://historicallyaccuratesteve.tumblr.com/) for helping me out with [what Steve and Bucky would've learned about women's suffrage in NYC public schools in the '20s and '30s](http://historicallyaccuratesteve.tumblr.com/post/93123313622/your-blog-is-incredibly-useful-thank-you-for-doing).
> 
> Huge thanks to college for teaching me about Selma and Stonewall.
> 
> Huge thanks to President Obama for linking these three together. I cried when he gave this speech and I cried reading it again for this fic.


End file.
